Married At First Sight bride KC Osborne was left horrified on January 17 when she watched her jockey husband Blake Spriggs get trampled by horses after a serious race fall at Moruya.
Spriggs, 32, was air-lifted from the track and rushed to Canberra Hospital where he was intubated and put into an induced coma after suffering near-fatal injuries.
Now, Osborne, 35, has exclusively revealed to Daily Mail Australia the heartbreaking details of her husband’s recovery and the emotional first words she said to him when he woke up from his coma.
The mother-of-one said she was cradling her two-year-old son Brooklyn, who she shares with Spriggs, in her lap as she watched the shocking accident unfold on live TV from home.
She said she was cheering her partner on as he was just moments away from pulling in first ahead of fellow jockey Beany Panyan, who also suffered a head injury and spinal fractures in the fall.
‘Then bang the fall happened. I saw Blake get trampled on by a couple of horses. He was like a washing machine just rolling while these horses were trampling over him. My first reaction—I just screamed,’ Osborne said.
The former reality TV star said she had to quickly pull her emotions back in check as she tried to play with her toddler Brooklyn and not let on that anything was wrong as she called her parents to come watch him.
‘I had no idea the condition [Spriggs] was in for those four hours while I was getting to the hospital. That part was really hard. There were lots of prayers,’ she said.
Osborne kept thinking: ‘I have to bring Blake home to his son. Brooklyn needs his daddy.’
When Osborne made it to the hospital, Spriggs’ doctors had very little hope to give her in the first 48 hours of the jockey’s intubation—but she refused to give up on him.
‘They told me Blake might not make it and I told the guy, “Well you better get in there and save his life because he has a two year old to come home to,”‘ Osborne said.
But there were certainly moments where the influencer feared the worst might happen.
‘The first 48 hours I was thinking this could go where he doesn’t make it,’ she said.
However, she kept repeating a mantra to herself which got her through, revealing Spriggs used to joke with her that he ‘was a machine’ whenever she asked how he dealt with the rigorous training schedule of being a jockey.
‘So when the doctors weren’t sure, I just kept telling myself, “Blake is going to pull through this. He’s a machine.” I just kept praying,’ she said.
After two weeks of intubation—days Osborne spent praying for Spriggs recovery while continuing to raise their son—the jockey was pulled out of his induced coma.
‘When he woke up he was communicating on a white board. That gave me a lot of relief that okay he is with us, it’s just going to be a long recovery,’ Osborne said of the moment.
‘I didn’t know the state he’d wake up in, so the first thing I said was, “Do you know who I am?” He nodded yes. I said, “And Brooklyn?” He nodded yes. Then I just cried and I said, “I love you so much.”
‘I said I’m not going anywhere and I’ll be here. I just kept squeezing his hand and he was squeezing mine back.’
Osborne went on to say ‘it was trauma’ seeing her love in such an injured state, but she was strong enough to pull herself together and do what needed to be done to help Spriggs recover.
‘When he got home I had a job to do and that was to look after him,’ she said.
‘It was full-time and we have a two-year-old, but I was just kind of like I just have to dedicate the next few months of my life to helping Blake back to good health as well as showing up for my son.’
Spriggs sustained significant life-threatening injuries during the fall, which occurred around the 400-metre mark of the sixth race when his horse Blesstas clipped the heels of the leader, The Boomerang, causing both to tumble.
Osborne said her husband ‘broke every rib but two, he had two punctured lungs, he had a haemorrhage near the liver, he broke both shoulders, he has a plate in his arm, and he got pneumonia while in hospital’.
She added his kidneys were also ‘failing so he had to go on dialysis’, dubbing Spriggs, who just had another shoulder surgery two weeks ago, a ‘miracle man’.
Panyan, 31, who was the jockey riding The Boomerang during the incident, was also left in serious condition with head injuries and two fractured vertebrae, but she is now well on her way to a full recovery.
Both horses escaped injury in the incident, and the remaining races at the event were cancelled.
As for Spriggs’ recovery, Osborne said ‘he is doing really well’ and is ‘determined to get back really strong again’.
‘He’s quite vibrant. He’s really positive because he loves doing his physio therapy and he’s determined to get back really strong again,’ she said.
‘It’s now just the broken bones that have to heal. He’s just been incredible with how he’s dealt with such a horrible, crazy accident.’
Osborne and Spriggs quietly tied the knot in a destination wedding in 2024 after announcing their engagement in August 2022, just a few months after revealing they were expecting their first child together.
Spriggs popped the question during their ‘babymoon’ in Hawaii, and they went on to welcome their baby boy Brooklyn in October 2022.
Things moved quickly for the couple, who went on their first date in January 2022 after Spriggs began following Osborne on social media when he watched her tie the knot on TV with her MAFS husband Drew Brauer in 2020.